


Starmaid

by Strawberry_Sweetheart



Series: Tumblr Drabble [7]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy bouta fly into the sun cuz he’s gay, Billy is spaceship mechanic, But In Space, M/M, Space Gays, a starmaid if you will, alright here me out, cuz he’s smart enough to build engines but not smart enough to overcome his dick, gays, harringrove in space, hes been bamboozled, mermaid Steve Harrington, steve is a space mermaid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:56:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25496455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strawberry_Sweetheart/pseuds/Strawberry_Sweetheart
Summary: "Bullshit! You’re not telling me you believe in those things, do you Buckley? I thought better of you.""I shit you not. You don’t think they’re out there? There are countless of sightings—""Made by drunken sailors and loons.""— not to mention some accounts dating back to the first fleet of space voyagers - hell! Even before that, dating all the way back to the first trip to themoon, Billy. Besides," Robin gave a wistful, heartsick sigh, "wouldn’t that be a way to go? Some pretty Starmaid comes a’knocking on the outside the ship, begging you to open the airlocks for a kiss.""Yeah, and I’d bet you’d do it too.""Hey, I’ve been stuck here for months as the only lesbian in the crew. If some pretty girl inexplicably showed up outside my dorm’s window, well, I’m already half insane with the dry spell I’m in, I might just risk the whole crew for some cooch. Warp us straight into a blackhole if she fluttered her eyelashes at me.""We sure are safe in oh so capable hands, Commander." Billy couldn’t help the sympathetic snort that escaped him.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Series: Tumblr Drabble [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1703482
Comments: 4
Kudos: 74





	Starmaid

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is @billy-baby  
> I posted that Drabble there too  
> Might fuck around and add onto it later dunno

"Bullshit! You’re not telling me you believe in those things, do you Buckley? I thought better of you."

"I shit you not. You don’t think they’re out there? There are countless of sightings—"

"Made by drunken sailors and loons."

"— not to mention some accounts dating back to the first fleet of space voyagers - hell! Even before that, dating all the way back to the first trip to the _moon_ , Billy. Besides," Robin gave a wistful, heartsick sigh, "wouldn’t that be a way to go? Some pretty Starmaid comes a’knocking on the outside the ship, begging you to open the airlocks for a kiss."

"Yeah, and I’d bet you’d do it too."

"Hey, I’ve been stuck here for months as the only lesbian in the crew. If some pretty girl inexplicably showed up outside my dorm’s window, well, I’m already half insane with the dry spell I’m in, I might just risk the whole crew for some cooch. Warp us straight into a blackhole if she fluttered her eyelashes at me."

"We sure are safe in oh so capable hands, Commander." Billy couldn’t help the sympathetic snort that escaped him.

Living with a small crew in an equally small spaceship left very little choice when indulging in... pastimes. He swears his left hand is about to fall clean off some nights from rubbing himself raw, but he guesses that’s how the stories of Mermaids from their earthen ancestors, and stories of Starmaids tricking pilots into flying straight into space debris, are created: by lonesome sailors in desperate need of a kiss from a pretty face. Billy lowers his welding mask and gets to work on performing routine maintenance on the turbine 12.

He forgets about the conversation with Buckley until weeks later. They’re a few days from stationing at a port and everybody’s taken the opportunity to take it slow. They’re drifting while the ship readies it’s engines for one final hyperwarp to the edge of the star system. Most of the crew finds themselves in their cabins and Billy takes the opportunity to roam the halls. He makes his way to what the crew calls the SunRoom, a circular room with a transparent dome of tempered glass, pressure pane, overhead that lies on the top floor of most spaceships. He remembers being young and fresh out of the academy, an assistant mechanic on this tiny scouting ship, smaller than the current cargo ship he finds himself in. Still, even that tiny ship had its own SunRoom, and he remembers standing in the middle of it with the rest of the newbies, staring out at a frightening infinite sea of black, feeling wonder and awe at the beauty of a million stars around them.

Everything else has lost its luster with time. Metal structures of the ships don't seem as grand and even all the different planets and ports don’t seem as much of an adventure as it used to. There’s only so many creatures with an unsettling number of eyes one can meet before becoming desensitized to the strange and impossible. But this, laying alone in the middle of the SunRoom, staring at the ever changing constellations of stars, he still finds that same awe and wonder. He thinks he’s just about to fall asleep staring into space, struggling to open his eyes with every blink now, his back sure to ache tomorrow from the cold metal floors, when he sees an orb of light, like the light of a comet, bright and streaking where it travels across the viewing glass of the dome, it’s tail a fading dusting of sparks like pixie dust from olden fairytales. It stops in the middle of the dome just as Billy stood to get a closer look, neck craning back to gaze at the light form.

The tiny light, no bigger than the size of his head, grows steadily until it starts to take shape. It morphs into something more solid, the light stretches until he can make out the shape of limbs, arms and legs, from the mass, until before him is the silhouette of a person made entirely from white and blueish light. It’s beautiful, bright but soft against his tired eyes. His body stills as does his mind, arms lose and heavy where they dangle by his side. All he wants is to stretch his arms overhead, close the last few feet between him and the dome, to press his palm against the glass barrier, see if he can feel warmth radiating from that soft light.

The thing moves like it cocks its head to the side, it’s own arms stretching to reach the glass, close enough that Billy can see it’s long tapering fingers spread against it. A static ringing fills his ears and a joy that’s not his own rushes through him. Amusement, he assesses, the thing is laughing, or maybe trying to talk, if such a thing can have a language. But from its movements, it must be an intelligent life form. He shuffles through the few lifeforms he’s learned about at the academy, the small handful that can survive in the open vacuum of space, but his mind feels so sluggish he can’t sort through his memories properly, struggling to classify it. 

The thing streaks across the dome until it’s out of sight. Billy’s eyes track it, a cold disappointment settling when he can’t see it anymore. He runs mindlessly down the halls, uniform boots clicking loud against the metal flooring, motion sensor lights flickering on as he races down the corridors, filling the halls with that clinical fluorescent gleam. He passes the dormitories and medical unit, all the way down towards the back of the ship, the tailend of the spacecraft where the engines are the loudest, where the walls and floor hum with the power of the turbines. This is the only place besides the cockpit and SunRoom that has viewing windows larger than a porthole. They’re there so maintenance workers and mechanics have a clear view of the panels outside. There are three main engines, half of the structures are inside the ship, the other half bulge out of the spacecraft from the belly of the ship. Buckley once joked about them being the ballsacks of the ship and Billy hates that he’s only ever referred to them as that since.

Billy presses his face against the windows, nose smooshed comically against it, eyes wide hoping to catch a glimpse of that funny little light. He sees the main panels of the engines, dozens of artificial twinkling lights flicker green and blue around the engines. And there from behind the tail of the ship, peers out the light being, peeking its head out from the fishtailed like structure, almost as if shy, coy in its curiosity. Billy’s mind is blank except for that static ringing. All he wants is to be closer, closer, closer. He wants to be close enough to touch its light, see for himself if it would burn his hand like an open flame or feel tender like the rays from suns back home. The being drifts closer to the glass, touches it with its hand right where Billy’s lays flat against it, nothing but tempered glass separating them. His ears ring, a chiming this time like countless tiny bells, and the being feels happy, happy, happy.

Billy would give anything to make it happy, anything to please the creature. That pretty, pleasant light. It moves and Billy follows it we’re it drifts across the glass until they reach the end of it, Billy’s fingers skimming where the metal and glass join and to his side he turns. Next to him are the airlocks. Spacesuits hang propped up against the walls along with the power tools needed to fix any mishaps outside the ship. Billy is familiar with the control panels, having been in and out of the airlock room on countless routine maintenance jobs. His fingers ghost over the control panel looking at the being of light that, without eyes, seem to stare intently at him with its featureless face.

He goes through the motions, as easy and dozy as sleepwalking, and in the backbone of his mind he registers the beeping alarm that comes with the first door opening and closing once the sensor registers a life form entering the airlock room. It’s the only thing that comforts Billy, knowing that there is something there to be recorded with instruments rather than just existing in his dream state mind. 

He looks through the porthole of the final door, now the only thing separating him and the being is the push of a button. Before his eyes, the thing takes mass, becoming solid and weighted. The light fades into fair skin, like rare porcelain, and long limbs, until it is a man that stands naked in the small room, on trembling legs. He stumbles to the door on newborn fawn legs, face close to the porthole, breath fogging the glass. Breathing and alive. His looks are fairly average: tall and soft bodied, plush pink lips below a strong nose, and dark hair glossy like strands of silk. But... he has these dark wide eyes that reflect the lights from the ship as if it holds its own twinkling stars hostage. Large and droopy, filled with an intense unblinking curiosity as it studies Billy’s own features. Something about that gaze holds something otherworldly, captivating and sweet like a honey trap. Inescapable like being held between the teeth of predator, jaw tight around him, and Billy doesn’t struggle.

It smiles, and Billy is starting to wake inside his mind from that hazy fog that was instilled in him, enough to recognize that what stands caged in the other room may look like a man, but is not a man at all. But it smiles, like something living and breathing and unbearably gentle. Human-like. Its cheeks are full and rosy, like there is blood beneath that false face. It’s skin is dotted with freckles like dark, sleeping stars, and it feeds into the illusion of its humanity through the slight imperfections. A cold sweat breaks over Billy’s skin as the thing looks at him through its dark lashes, pleading and charmingly playful. He’s now aware of his movements though there is nothing he can do to stop himself. Bile threatens to rise from his stomach and the word Starmaid echoes in his imprisoned mind, wrongness where the words are light and in the feminine’s laughter of Buckley’s voice. 

The thing raises a pale hand to the porthole window and Billy wonders if he’s going crazy because it’s palms have lines cutting across it like his own, fingers blushed red at the tips as if from the cold, looking inexplicably human in its tenderness. But it traces patterns into the glass, caressing touches, and speaks without moving its mouth to form words. Voice a chiming bell that rings in his mind, coaxing

_Let me in._

And Billy opens the final door of the airlock.


End file.
